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The Memorial and Reserve commemorate Nurse Edith Cavell who was executed by a German firing squad during World War One. The original memorial was erected in 1931.

The area underwent restoration work and is known as Edith Cavell Reserve. A plaque was added to the memorial in 2003 commemorating all nurses who served their country in all wars as well as a plaque dedicated to the women of Australia who stayed at home.

Edith Cavell was born in 1865 and became a private tutor for a wealthy Belgium family at the age of 25. After 5 years she returned home to nurse her father, and subsequently became a nurse. Before World War One she was invited to start the first nursing school in Belgium.

She looked after wounded soldiers of both sides and organised an escape route for captured French, British and Belgian soldiers. She hid them in the nurses school and led them through the the streets of Brussels at night to put them in touch with a chain of helpers she had organised.

By 1915 the German secret police had begun to suspect her. She and 34 helpers were arrested and she was sentenced to death. She was executed by a firing squad in 1915. The Ararat State School Mothers Club formed a committee and raised 152 pounds to erect the memorial to register "their disgust at this atrocity". Every ANZAC day a wreath is laid by a nurse before the procession proceeds to the Ararat War Memorial